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Web Coding Protocols

Web coding forms the backbone of every web page created as the person creating any new web page will use web coding to design every element of the site/page. There are two main types of web page: static coding(HTML) and dynamic coding(PHP).

Static coding displays the same content that was originally placed on the page/site when the web creator made it. Therefore typically static we pages have HTML coding (HyperText MarkupLanguage). Static coding is good for web pages which are rarely updated however they become less impractical when someone chooses to use a large number of static pages on their websites. An example of this is when it comes to making any changes to their website the web administrator would need to psychically change the code on every page which is very time consuming and not very practical.

On the other hand, dynamic coding is an amalgamation of HTML and PHP and is useful to a user who wants to regularly update and add content to their web page. The main advantage to these types of sites is they allow a much greater interaction between the audience and the site administrator through comments and links. The majority of dynamic web pages are social media websites,blogs and forums/message boards.

Another advantage to dynamic coding is the fact it’s far more user friendly over static coding as the user does not need to have any prior knowledge about coding however with static coding the user would need a competent level of knowledge on how to implement coding as they would need to manually enter the right coding themselves. This therefore makes dynamic coding the more helpful type of coding to use for people who are new to creating websites or have little technical knowledge of website design which explains it’s overwhelming popularity for website design.

An example of a live static webpage is http://www.fibercom.co.za/ . This page is clearly static as the site has no interactional features and the website content shows no sign of having any changes made to it. An example of live semi-static web pages are the majority of Wikipedia pages which are set up and the in the majority left as a static web page it can be argued as although by definition they’re dynamic pages as anyone can edit them their appearance suggest that these pages are static as they have features related to dynamic coding on their pages. Although with some pages such as with living people the pages will be updated depending on the latest goings on in their life some of he pages will be created and then left untouched. Here’ a link to a semi-static Wikipedia page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website#Static_website .

Examples of Dynamic web pages are social media sites Twitter and Facebook. Users can post anything they want on these pages and can interact and share info with other users easily which helps explain their huge popularity as websites. All users have to do is sign up to these sites and confirm some of their details for security reasons and they can access these sites immediately. Dynamic coding is realistically the only coding template these sites can use to function as with static coding these sites would need an army of people constantly re-writing the coding to keep up with the intense speed of progress and rate of growth of these sites with new tweets and posts.

Also even with more simple areas such as the sign in menu with entering your username and password to gain access to the site this requires dynamic coding as the content on the page is changing and the coding needs to work in line with the server, something dynamic coding can do automatically whereas static coding cannot, to see if the username/password has been entered correctly before it grants the user access to the site. The links to both pages can be found here http://www.Twitter.com and http://www.Facebook.com .

There are many different HTML tags in use and the first example is the images tag which is

<img>

. An example of all 5 HTML tags can be found on the Wikipedia page I linked above. The function of images are to add a visual element to the web page which help attract people to your site as it keeps their attention focused on your site. Secondly images can help show or explain to the reader something which the site administrator could not adequately explain themselves in text form.

A second example are heading tags which are

<h1>

and their function is for adding keywords or pictures related to your site. This is significant as it helps massively with your search engine optimisation as search engines identify these tags to determine where your page is placed for different search options. Another key point with heading tags are the fact that heading tags can be used multiple times such as

<h2>

and a third example is

<h3>

.

Heading tags can be used to your advantage if you follow a similar layout to most newspapers where the main header sits atop the page before the second header will contain the main headline whereas finally the third header will be the first paragraph of the article which typically is in bold text. These tags can be a huge advantage for your website because if your using these tags coupled with any added links or images they can drastically improve your search engine optimization ranking on sites such as Google, which can consequently improve the amount of visitors to your page.

It works simply as search engines like Google rank web pages in priority form based on an a reputation it bases on views and how many times the site is linked from another page therefore the more links and tags used in your web page the higher it will appear in Google and the amount of views will increase also. Finally these tags, although easy to use with dynamic coding, are far more difficult to use with static coding as the web administrator would need to physically re-write all the coding to add in these tags every time they want to add a new one which is very time consuming and not a very practical method to use.

Paragraph tags which are either

<p></p>

or

<span></span>

.
The only difference between the two slightly different paragraph tags are that the

<p></p>

represent a line break in the paragraph whereas the

<span></span>

doesn’t show a line break in the paragraph. The primary function of paragraphs are to help disperse the amount of text which helps with the visual appeal of the site as many people will not be prepared to read one paragraph of text the length of the page yet they will read the same content if it’s broken down into smaller chunks.

Another HTML tag commonly used is comment tags which are

<!--This is a comment. Comments are not displayed in the browser-->

. The biggest advantage with comment tags are that they allow an interaction between the reader and site administrator which can add to any points made on the page and can therefore benefit the content of the page as a balanced argument can be created. However, Static web pages rarely use comment tags which limits their significance.

The final example of HTML tags are link tags which are

<a href="http://www.example.com"></a>

. They can add to the content to the web page as the web page creator could post a link to a similar website with different or higher levels of knowledge on the subject. Also visual content such as videos or images can be posted on the site to add a visual element to the page which would nicely complement the text on the page. Also with HTML there are more than one type of them which is useful in a number of ways.